In many business- or professional-related situations or the like, an age-old and recurring problem is effectuating contact between a professional or the like and a client or the like calling or otherwise attempting to contact the professional. Perhaps ideally, the client would place a telephone call or the like to the professional, the professional would answer the placed telephone call instantaneously if not within a matter of moments, the desired contact would thus be established, and the caller and professional could communicate regarding some matter of interest. Notably, however, most professionals are not always available to answer all calls instantaneously or even momentarily. For example, the professional simply may not want to answer calls, such as for example if on a vacation or at a family event, among other things, or the professional may be otherwise occupied by professional matters.
With regard to the latter case in particular, it may be that a doctor may be occupied by a medical matter and unavailable, or a lawyer may be in a legal conference from which she or he is not to be disturbed. Likewise, a funeral director may be attending to a first client while a second client is calling. In such a particular situation as well as others, it should be noted that not only is the funeral director otherwise occupied by the first client, but the nature of the funeral business is such that it would be considered to be particularly insensitive if not rude to answer the call from the second client while still attending to the first client.
Generally, it is to be recognized that a professional or the like may not always be immediately available to answer a call from a client, be it to a landline telephone line or a mobile telephone line or to such other communications device which may be available. As should be appreciated, such a situation can exist even when the client is calling regarding an urgent matter, such as a life-threatening matter or a matter that otherwise should be given immediate attention. Accordingly, it is known that such a professional may employ a business organization that provides answering services or the like (hereinafter, ‘an answering service’) to answer calls from clients when the professional is not immediately available.
As should be understood, a call to the professional is forwarded therefrom to the answering service by appropriate means when the professional is not available to answer such call or the like, and the answering service may perform a range of answering duties on behalf of the professional. For example, upon answering the call on behalf of the professional, the answering service may let the caller know when the professional is scheduled to be available, or may collect information so that the professional can return the call at an opportune time. Likewise, the answering service may perform an assessment regarding the nature of the call and based thereon may perform a range of actions. Thus, the answering service may determine that a relatively more serious matter requires more immediate action from the professional, in which case the answering service may attempt to contact the professional as soon as possible by appropriate means. Correspondingly, the answering service may determine that a relatively less serious matter requires less immediate action from the professional, in which case the answering service may only create a message for the professional to be collected thereby at a later time.
It is to be understood that in at least some professional situations, an answering service acts not only to answer calls on behalf of a professional, but also acts as what likely is the first contact a caller encounters regarding a called professional. Thus, the answering service may in fact be the initial public face of the professional to the caller, and if so may act to form the first impression by the caller of the professional. Put another way, if an initially calling caller is treated well by the answering service, and is otherwise made to feel comfortable and impressed by the answering service, such an initially calling caller is more likely to continue with further efforts to contact the professional and employ the goods and/or services of the professional. Conversely, if an initially calling caller is treated poorly by the answering service, or is otherwise made to feel uncomfortable or unimpressed by the answering service, such an initially calling caller may forego further efforts to contact the professional, and instead may call another professional.
The aforementioned funeral business or the like is especially relevant to such situation, in that a funeral caller initially calling a funeral director or the like probably or even likely has never previously contacted that funeral director, or any other funeral director for that matter, at least on a professional basis. Moreover, such funeral caller may have just suffered a loss of a relative or friend and also may be in an especially precarious frame of mind. Thus, and again, if the initially calling funeral caller is answered by an answering service on behalf of the funeral director, the answering service must take special care to treat the funeral caller with dignity, caring, and compassion, as is fitting and proper. Also, it is to be considered that the call from the funeral caller to the funeral director if properly handled likely will result in a relatively large monetary fee to the funeral director for funeral-related goods and services. Thus, the answering service must take special care to ensure that the funeral caller is not dissuaded or otherwise given reason to seek such funeral-related goods and service elsewhere.
Particularly with regard to funeral directors and the special needs thereof as outlined above, funeral answering services and the like have been developed to focus on and address same. Moreover, it should be understood that such funeral answering services are employed not only by funeral directors, but also by other funeral professionals that require similar heightened levels of dignity, caring, and compassion in their answering service needs. Such other funeral professionals may for example include funeral homes, cremation services, crematory facilities, cemetery and memorial parks, casket and coffin companies, livery services, trade embalmers, funeral transport services, coroners, monument companies, burial vault companies, grief and bereavement counselors, body and tissue donation services, pet cremation, burial and cemetery services, and the like.
Typically, upon a funeral business engaging an answering service to answer calls to the funeral business, the answering service engages the services of one or more telephone service providers or the like to effectuate forwarding of telephone calls or the like from the business to the answering service, particularly in a manner deemed necessary and/or advisable by the business. Such engaging and such forwarding services are generally known and need not be set forth herein in any detail other than that which is provided. Generally, the forwarding may occur on any appropriate basis, including the time of day, whether forwarding has been positively engaged or disengaged, whether the business has selected a particular call for forwarding, whether a call has rung a predetermined number of times, whether a phone or phone system of the business is off, or the like.
Notably, the answering service may answer a call on behalf of a particular funeral business according to a predetermined procedure or ‘script’ that has been established for the particular funeral business. As may be appreciated, the script can be quite involved, and can tend to cover a wide range of subjects, including the name and location of the deceased, the name, location, and telephone number of the caller, whether the caller is a family member or friend or a staff member at a nursing home or hospital or the like, where and when the funeral is to be performed, where and when burial or cremation is to be performed, required clergy, directions to establishments, parking availability and needs, handicap accessibility, available local florists and flower delivery services, and the like. In fact, such scripts can accommodate a wide range of scenarios and needs, and therefore can be quite extensive. Importantly, with the use of such a script, information can be collected from the funeral caller according to the script and entered into an appropriate database or the like for later retrieval and use, as is generally known.
In the prior art, the answering service would, based on such a script, collect all information as dictated according to the script, and then would terminate the call from the funeral caller, of course with appropriate dignity and consolation, as well as with an assurance that the funeral director/funeral business/funeral professional (hereinafter, ‘funeral professional’) would return the call. Notably, the answering service would then attempt to contact the funeral professional, but only upon the call being terminated. Typically, although by no means necessarily, the funeral professional can be contacted by way of a predetermined mobile telephone line, landline telephone line, pager, mobile electronic mail device, desktop electronic mail device, mobile electronic texting device, desktop electronic texting device, or a combination thereof, or the like.
Waiting until a call from a funeral caller is terminated to contact the funeral professional may be considered to be advantageous in that the answering service has collected a goodly amount of information on behalf of the funeral professional, and such information may then be forwarded to the funeral professional as a single package that may be in a more-or-less complete form. For example, the information may be forwarded as an electronic message to one or more of the aforementioned electronic devices of the funeral professional, at about when the call is terminated, when the funeral professional is actually contacted by the answering service, or the like. Alternately, if the funeral professional is contacted by the answering service by telephonic means, such information can be orally transmitted to the funeral professional. Note, though, that such oral transmission is prone to errors and can take quite some time if the information is relatively large.
Significantly, though, waiting until a call from a funeral caller is terminated to contact the funeral professional is disadvantageous in that the funeral caller, who again likely has just suffered a loss of a relative or friend and also likely is in an especially precarious frame of mind, would very much prefer to speak directly to the funeral professional rather than an answering service. Put plainly, the typical grieving funeral caller prefers and even expects to speak directly to the funeral professional as soon as possible to ensure that the funeral process as performed by such funeral professional is expeditiously begun. Perhaps more importantly, the typical grieving funeral caller also prefers and even expects to speak directly to the funeral professional as soon as possible in order to receive the psychological comforting that the funeral professional provides and has been trained to provide. After all, some of the most important functions the funeral professional performs are to help those who are still alive grieve the loss of the deceased.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system and method for providing enhanced answering services in a time-sensitive manner, particularly where the answering services are funereal in nature. In particular, a need exists for such a system and method where, upon recognizing that the caller is a funeral caller requiring professional services of a funeral professional for a deceased, contact with the funeral professional is automatically initiated, even before the call has been terminated. Further, a need exists for such a system and method where, upon establishing a connection with the funeral professional, the funeral professional can be introduced into the call while ongoing and can take over the call, the better to be able to directly comfort the grieving caller and also the better to be able to directly collect any additional information needed.